Think Like No One Else Thinks

What does inattentional blindness – a concept from cognitive psychology – have to do with the unconscious mind, racism, game, and politics? Find out in the latest Danger & Play Podcast. (Scroll down for the transcription.)

This is the Gorilla Video on Attention Blindness referenced in the podcast:

(Notice it’s a bear and not a gorilla – a testament to the fallibility of human memory.)

Podcast Transcription

D&P:
Hello this is Mike from DangerAndPlay.com, we are live from the studio and today we’re going to talk about…well, I don’t really know what we’re going to talk about. We’re going to talk about a few concepts and see if they make a lot of sense.

So on this one, trust me a little bit.

So here’s what happened and here’s where going to go. I was at the St. Louis Airport on a long layover because my flight was delayed. And I said well I’m going to sit down and do a podcast. The podcast was going to be on using art to unlock your unconscious mind and to desire your unconscious desires. It’s actually going to be a really cool podcast. We’re going to talk about the work of Carl Jung and a book called “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” and we’re going to tie that into how you can find your unconscious mind.

The reason we’re going to do this podcast first is, I noticed something that I had never noticed before. Which was, the freaking speakers, they are always on. There is always some dumb announcement going on and it’s actually much louder and more annoying than I ever thought. And I had always tuned that out. And think about it…

How many things do we tune out that are always there, and what does that do to our unconscious minds and how does that impact our unconscious thoughts?

The cognitive science behind this, it’s a well-studied concept and it’s called inattentional blindness. And if you pull up the Wikipedia, “Inattentional blindness, also known as perceptual blindness, is categorized as a psychological lack of attention and is not associated with any vision defects or deficits.”

What does that mean? You walk around and you notice one thing, but you don’t notice a bunch of other things even though these other things might be extremely easy to see. For example, there was an experiment where the researchers had the subject sit and watch a bunch of people dribbling on a basketball court and they said to count the number of dribbles on the basketball court. Dribble dribble dribble dribble and everybody said, “Oh I got 11, is that right?” You know, because we want to be right. And they said “Yeah, great, that was the right number.” But that wasn’t the experiment. The experiment was, there was a woman who came out, and she was in like a Victorian style dress with an umbrella and she walked right across the basketball court and almost nobody noticed that.

There was a funny spoof of that in a beer commercial, and I’ll try to link to that at DangerAndPlay.com when I do my show notes, assuming I can find it. The same thing happened, they had people dribbling a basketball and a guy comes out in a gorilla suit, and you don’t see the gorilla suit and there’s the punchline. You didn’t see the gorilla.

Now where is this all headed? I thought about something 5 minutes ago that can really help us and here’s how it can help us.

If you want to be like other people and you want to see the world differently from other people, then you have to pay attention to things other people don’t pay attention to.

I just thought of a really cool exercise. On any given day, spot something new or novel. So I said, I’m just going to pay attention to everything that is white. Why white? No reason, that’s just the first thing that came to my head like a lot of these podcasts. Some random thought just comes into my head and I just try to develop it.

You know, I’m in my living room right now and there’s white show laces, there’s white on the bottom of the shoes. I got these boat shoes over there, there are the white laces. Oh, there’s a white box over there. These gummy fibers are white. There’s a white label on the protein powder. So suddenly, now I’m only noticing everything that’s white.

Now you might think “Think is a pointless exercise. What is it getting at?” But we are getting at 2 bigger concepts.

Thinking differently means you notice things other people don’t notice.

If you are like me and everyone else in this world, you are only noticing a few things. And often the only things you are noticing are what people are trying to get you to notice. Think about the original experiment, “Hey count the dribbles,” right? So you are paying attention to what somebody else told you to. When the joke was on you right? There was a woman in a dress and they snuck her right by you. It’s almost like magic isn’t it?

Think about politics. Pay attention: right, left, right left. Are you liberal? Democrat? Liberal? Democrat? That’s what they want you to pay attention to. But then watch how people are living in our country right? Look at the concentration of media ownership and how only a few mega conglomerates own all the papers and they can control the news.

Look at what isn’t covered in the news. Go to a website called ProjectCensored.org that covers the 25 most censored stories and some of them are a little bit oddball but, some of them are things that you think “WOW why isn’t anybody talking about this?” Well it’s because of the power elite and the people who are really running this country have tuned in on our inattentional blindness. They have us arguing with one another about essentially nonsense.

An example of this, how we can get past this is, I had a meet-up in New York and a meet up in DC and I met with a bunch of Danger & Play readers. It was the first time I had done anything like that, it was a really good time and really good success. I think I’m going to do more.

Well, I don’t know what anybody’s politics are, because I didn’t ask. One guy at the NY meet-up said “Man it’s nice, I look around and there’s actually like some other black guys here you know? Or some other brown people. It’s not just mostly white guys.” And I said “Well yeah, that’s because I don’t allow any racism at Danger & Play at all. Period. Racism comment deleted.”

And for the longest time it was because people thought I was black. So I went with the joke. “Yeah, I’m a black guy, I got the swagger of a black guy and I’m going to be banging all your white girlfriends.” And the reason I believe that is because, if you are listening to Danger & Play, and reading Danger & Play, we are the oppressed. We are the ones who have the world against us. We are in a world where they want us to be less masculine. They want us to have low testosterone, they want us to have cognitive deficits. They want us to just be sick, weak, and feeble. So why in the hell would anybody at Danger & Play have a problem with a black guy, or a brown guy, or a Democrat or a Republican, or a liberal or a conservative?

Why would that even matter? That’s not the game right? We’re playing their game by doing this. We’re paying attention to shit that they want us to pay attention to while they are ruining our society, right? While they are ruining our lives. So think about that.

Think about how you can notice things that other people aren’t noticing on a higher more abstract level such as how the political game really is.

By starting to notice thing other people aren’t noticing. How many times do you see white in the room? How many BMWs do you see on the road? How many Jeep Cherokees do you see on the road? Pick anything, it really doesn’t matter. This will also make you more successful.

Well I’m not going to do one of those things likes “Gee, Mike well how do you notice things other people don’t notice?” And act like I’m some kind of a cool guy but if you want to think differently, all I do is I’ve noticed things other people don’t notice. There is no magic to what I do. I’m no kind of super genius. You know, my mom sent me, I don’t why she did it…I guess that’s just what moms do. A few years ago she sent me back one of my report cards and standardized test when I was like a little kid and all my IQ tests or whatever had put me in 83rd percentile, 88th percentile. You know, a decent smart enough kid, but I don’t think anybody would think that I was just kind of that smart. People probably think I’m a little bit smarter than that, but on those so-called standardized tests, yeah you know, smart kid. Above average, nothing special.

I notice things that other people don’t notice and that’s because I pay attention to things others don’t pay attention to.

Think about how this relates to our last podcast, where we talked about the power of active engagement. You are looking at one thing, and you are noticing things that other people don’t notice, and that’s because you are actively engaged in everything. Remember I said that I just stare at my website and I just look and look and I look and I look. I’m paying attention to everything and I’m paying attention to nothing at the same time. And because of that, I notice things that other people maybe wouldn’t notice. And I see things that other people wouldn’t see.

There’s no magic. You just flip your phone down, don’t listen to any outside influences, and you just pay attention to something.

It’s actually a good writing exercise too. If you read books on writing, one guy said to pick up an ink pen and just look at it. Think, “How would I describe the ink pen?” You would talk about the roundness of it. The texture on the handle. The length of it. The color. How it feels in a person’s hands. You just do that for an ink pen and go write 500 words on an ink pen. If you can write 500 words on an ink pen and describe it in a vivid, engaging manner…what about when you have something interesting to write about, right?

What if you have something like character development? I don’t do fiction but that’s a great way that you start writing about fictional characters is you start to notice everything about a person. You notice the body language, the posture, you can use that in meeting women. Does a girl crinkle her eyes a certain way when she talks? Well I bet you nobody else has told her that. Maybe she crinkles her eyes when she smiles. What do you think if you were just another guy trying to get a phone number? Maybe you notice something about this girl that nobody else has ever noticed. Do you think you might connect on a little bit of a deeper level? Maybe it’s something she noticed about herself and she wishes other people had noticed.

Now what?

You are looking at things in a way that other people aren’t, so you are differentiating yourself from every other schlub.

IT applies to every area of your life. It applies to entrepreneurialism. That’s all the most successful businesses are, is that they notice things that other people didn’t notice. And because of that, they were able to come up with solutions that other people weren’t able to come up with.

So what you want to do is, you want to train your mind to start noticing what other people don’t.

Start off very basic. Again, maybe colors. Maybe textures. Maybe the types of cars that people drive and then start to get a little bit deeper and see how that affects you. And then think even more deeply about the subject and think about how our unconscious mind is taking in everything. Even if our conscious mind isn’t aware of it, our unconscious mind is aware of it.

And we’re going to talk about how that relates to frame control and the origins of thoughts. Think about this, where do your thoughts come from? That don’t just appear form nowhere. They come from your environment, from your civilization, from your culture. If you live in a certain type of culture, you are going to have certain religious beliefs. And you are going to fight with people tooth and that your religion is right and everyone else if going to die and go to hell…well where do those thoughts come from? They came from your culture. You didn’t come up with them.

Where did your morality come from? There is probably some general universal morality that we can all kind of agree on but where did monogamy as a moral rather than a situational value come from? Why is monogamy moral and polygamy immoral? Well, it’s because of our culture. That came from outside of you, that gets imprinted into your unconscious mind.

Why do you feel crappy about yourself? A lot of times it’s because thoughts got into your unconscious mind from your parents, your teachers, from the government, from the establishment, from the man. Or today, there’s no “the man” there’s “the woman.” And it’s completely ruined and wrecked your mind and you weren’t even attentive of that.

So where is this all going? Well, if you want to be a better thinker, if you want to control what your unconscious encounters…the best way to control what your unconscious encounters, control your environment.

Regular readers who read Danger & Play know I’m real big on not having friends who are losers. You can’t have friends who are “do nothings.” Even if they are “nice guys,” you can’t have them in your life and that’s because their unconscious attitudes, behaviors, and desires are going to get into your unconscious mind. And it will get into your unconscious mind, again, in a way that you won’t even notice because of inattentional blindness.

Does this all make sense? I sure hope so. I hope it’s not a ramble. I hope we united some things that might seem un-unite-able, and let’s talk more again next time. And hopefully the next podcast is going to be on how you can unlock your unconscious desires by going to art museums.

Until then, this is Mike from DangerAndPlay.com, thanks again for listening.

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Ha, thanks for the shout out. I was pretty surprised by how mixed the NYC meet-up crowd was.

Another timely post. A friend and I are going into the exam prep business and we’re trying to bring our own sort of angle to the industry. Most EP companies are dry and don’t appeal to their demographic in anyway other than the fact that they offer a service that students might want. As I create more material, I’m going to examine passages with an eye towards uniqueness.

Simon

Great podcast. I wrote about this in mail I sent you, I’m trying to sharpen my mind and focus.

Couple of mental exercises that I do are:

1. Reading and remembering car plates. As you’re walking past parked cars try to take a short look (really short, less than 1 second) and read and remember car plate. Than look again and check if you read it correctly. Do the same for next car, and then take 20 steps (count them) and try to remember of both plates.

This turns regular walk or commute into mental exercise. It gets even more challenging if you’re walking with someone and having a conversation. Another way to make it harder is remembering car type, model and color.

Point of all this is to strenghten your short term memory, and training your eye speed. You’ll be suprised how fast can you read entire car plates. Read Tony Buzan’s work of you want to know more.

2. This one is similar to what Mike was talking in podcast. When you are at public place (bus, crowded street, gym, anywhere with people), pick a person and try to notice as much details about them as possible. I got this idea when I watched Bourne trilogy.

Think about it this way: if you got robbed at gunpoint, how accurately could you describe a thief?

When I thought about it, I realized that I see only basic things on someone. Eye and hair color, shirt and pants…I was missing so much. So at bus, I started looking with intention. Suddenly, I would notice so much more. Jewelry, hair style, color of socks, body type, posture…you name it.

It’s crazy how much you can miss out when your mind is out of focus and you’re lost inside your head.

Jose L Romero

Simon i know for me i tend to memorize license plates, make and color of car. I thought I was the only person who does that! At work I can tell you who drives what and where they usually park! Its just something that i like to do to keep from getting bored!

You should see the look on people’s faces when I tell them what they drive, color and plate number they look at me as if I’m crazy!

Did you know that you could actually figure out what time it is just by listening to a song on the radio? By listening to a radio station you could memorize a song on their play list and be able to tell what time it is more or less!

Even people’s faces I could tell you who works in my corporate building and who does not. I guess maybe I’m weird! Who knows!

I think these are great exercises to keep the mind alert of what is around you rather than walking blindly and becoming a target.

Great comment Simon!

Danger & Play Blog

Your point about the thief and gun is why I started studying this subject so long ago.

Experiments have shown that people held up at gunpoint focus on the gun. They remember the gun in vivid detail.

Then that person is asked to identify…the thief!

As you know, inattentional blindness means they had been focusing on the gun and not the thief.

This is why there are a lot of innocent men in prison. False identifications are the #1 cause of wrongful convictions.

Jose L Romero

Great Post Mike!
When i go to work and at times i might get there earlier than expected I would watch the cars come into the parking lot and actually memorize the type of car that person drives as well as the license plates.
An exercise that Simon spoke in his comment below! There have been times that I would go to the local bar and just by looking at who is parked outside I could tell who is inside the bar. At times i would recognize cars from people who work in the same corporate office as i did.

I thought it was just something weird that i did to keep myself and my mind from being bored out of my mind! When I tell people what they drive and the plate number they look at me as if I’m crazy!

Great Post Mike!

DukeNuke

This makes total sense as to how when you hang out with losers you slowly begin to take on some of their mindsets.. they seep in and pollute the subconsious with nonsense and eventually you take on some of their traits and thinking patterns. It’s as if your subconscious mind accepts a new reality and you develop a similiar thought process. This is especially true for youngsters who are using the wrong examples as their “mentors”

This feels so close to what I’m experiencing and I wonder why there are so few shares and comments on here. I’ve been listening to your older podcasts and this one was especially helpful to me.

I was on tour with my band for the past two weeks in Russia and after learning about inattentional blindness in your podcast, I started to notice unusual things and really absorbing the tour experience much more in depth than I would have otherwise. I think this is really a great part of the way you write and choose the topics to write about, and that’s why I love D&P and your podcast, because it’s unconventional and often counterintuitive but still so applicable to everyday’s life

Thinking like no one else thinks makes you also more mindful and keeps you in the present in my opinion, another reason to always exercise with it. I recently started writing and adopting this strategy will definitely help with coming up with topics and see all the different shades a topic can have depending on how you look at it or what do you notics about it.

Thank you Mike!

Mike Cernovich

Glad you liked it and yeah, it’s one of those podcasts that didn’t “land.” But these type of podcasts are my favorite to do. It’s amazing what you notice when you start paying attention, isn’t it?

Yesterday I was out with a group of friends meeting other friends and I met this cute girl.

Barely got a chance to speak to her as we saw a film but I made a joke comment before we were seated and she responded with a similar tone of reply.

The words she chose and how she phrased it were in complete alignment with my piss-take manner. The exactitude of it stood out to me as an obvious indicator of compatibility. To most it’s just an offhand retort but when you train yourself to see what people aren’t seeing I find there’s always more to discover.

Samim S

This podcast is a must listen for anyone applying the Vision exercise.I tried the Vision exercise in Gorilla Mindset and was having difficulty holding on to the future vision. I remembered this podcast and listened it again. And it makes perfect sense why. Because my unconscious is trained by the society/culture to notice on scarcity as a norm. Unless I actively choose to focus on what I want to focus on and reject the mundane stuff, vision exercise won’t come to life. This is so brilliant.

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